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Joe Biden
Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. is an American Politician, and member of the Democratic Party. He was elected Vice President in 2008 under President Barack Obama in a landslide vote. Origins and early political career Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the son of Joseph Robinette Biden Sr. (1915–2002) and Catherine Eugenia "Jean" Finnegan (born 1918), one of four children in the Irish Catholic family. During his childhood, his family was rather poor, until as a teenager his father got a job as a used car salesman, bringing the Bidens into the middle class. Biden was a stand out athlete, leading a perennially loosing team to an undefeated season in his senior year. In college, Biden was an undistinguished student, but a natural leader, and already active politically in the anti segregation movement. At the University of Deleware, he impressed many with his cramming and all nighter abilities, as he often neglected to study, being more interested in socializing and sports then learning. Biden carried this streak into getting his Law Degree (docterate) calling it ¨the biggest bore in my life¨. Biden started practicing law in 1969, first as a public defender then started his own firm. Lack of interest and money in the field led him to run in 1970 for city council, winning handily as a democrat in a solidly republican district. In 1972, Biden decided to run against the popular and powerful Republican incumbent senator J. Caleb Boggs. His campaign was primarily run by friends and family, and he was down thirty points in polling over the summer, yet he won an upset victory by three thousand votes, catapulting him onto the national stage. In December, several weeks after being elected, Biden´s wife and one year old daughter were killed in a car accident while shopping. Biden´s two sons Beau and Hunter were critically injured (they later made full recoveries), so that Biden was sworn in from their bedside. The accident left Biden filled with both anger and religious doubt: "I liked to around seedy neighborhoods at night when I thought there was a better chance of finding a fight ... I had not known I was capable of such rage ... I felt God had played a horrible trick on me." Life as a Senator In order to be at home every day for his young sons, Biden began the practice of commuting an hour and a half each day on the train from his home in the Wilmington suburbs to Washington, D.C., which he continues to do. In the aftermath of the accident, he had trouble focusing on work, and appeared to just go through the motions of being a senator. In his memoirs, Biden notes that staffers were taking bets on how long he would last. A single father for five years, Biden left standing orders that he be interrupted in the Senate at any time if his sons called. In remembrance of his wife and daughter, Biden does not work on December 18, the anniversary of the accident. Biden was the fifth youngest senator ever, being sworn in at the minimum age of 30. Biden has been reelected five times each time with about 60 percent of the vote. As chairman of the Judiciary committee, Biden presided over the Bork and Thomas nominations, opposing each but doing so in a manner that commanded respect and admiration from both sides of the aisle. Biden also created the Violence Against Women act in 1995, a landmark and popular bill which fought against gender motivated crimes and domestic abuse. He also chairs the Narcotics control committee, and has long been a leader in the War on Drugs. But perhaps his most important position has been as chairman of the International Relations Committee, where he played a large role in Cold War politics, fought against Genocide, and spearheaded an effort to pacify the Balkans. Biden voted against the first gulf war, but for the second. He has long supported an internationalist foreign policy, advocating that the US focus on cooperation with its allies and negotiate with its enemies before force is ever considered and then it must be in concert with allied forces. He also advocates splitting Iraq into three ethnic states to reduce violence and end the war. Election as Vice President Biden ran in the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary, but early on it was clear that this campaign, like his 1988 one would be a flop. After dropping out, it seemed that for him he must wait out another election cycle. Then, on August 28, Barack Obama tapped Biden to be his running mate. Biden polled as having easily won the Vice Presidential Debate, but the media often ignored him in favor of his GOP opposite, Sarah Palin. The election got particularly nasty at the end, where pointed GOP attacks on him and his family led him to ¨campaign angry¨. In after election polling, it has been shown that these attacks on the likable senator actually hurt the GOP, although close friends say that Biden still holds a personal hatred of those who perpetrated the attacks. Biden and Obama won an electoral landslide on November 4, winning by over ten percent. He has been critical of Bush´s late term actions, including pardoning prominent republicans and granting blanket amnesty to his administration. Due to heavy political pressure (and the QPawn timeline) George W. Bush resigned at 11:59 on December 31st and President Obama, and Vice President Biden were sworn in at midnight. Quotes *Rudy Giuliani — there's only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, a verb, and 9/11. **October, 30 2007 MSNBC Democratic Debate * The decision of whether or not the country should go to war is slightly above your pay grade. ** To Scott Ritter, in hearings about the disarmament process. * The one thing I want my kids to remember about me is that I was an athlete. The hell with the rest of this stuff. *I think you're a damn war criminal, and you should be tried as one. **Biden said this to Slobodan Milosevic, in person, in 1993.